Standard electrical outlets may be found in homes, office buildings, and factories, for example. Such electrical outlets provide readily available electricity to those who need it, for example, for lamps, appliances, televisions, audio equipment, curling irons, etc. To provide electricity to an electrical outlet, electrical wiring is routed from an electrical panel to the electrical outlet, with possible intermediate routings to other electrical outlets or lights along the way. The electrical wiring includes a hot wire (typically a black wire or a blue wire) that brings electrical power to the electrical outlet from the electrical panel, and a neutral wire (typically a white wire) that returns power from the electrical outlet to the electrical panel. A third wire is often provided (typically a green wire) that serves as a grounding wire.
When an electrical load (e.g., a lamp) is plugged into an electrical outlet, a closed circuit is completed between the hot wire and the neutral wire and electrical current flows between the electrical panel and the electrical outlet through the electrical load. In the United States, such electrical power is provided as an alternating current (AC) at about 120 Volts (i.e., 120 VAC) at a frequency of 60 Hz.
External timers exist that may be plugged into an electrical outlet. Such external timers are often used to turn on a lamp at a particular time of day (e.g., 6:00 p.m.), and then turn off the lamp at another particular time of day (e.g., 12:00 midnight). Such external timers typically use power provided by the electrical outlet to operate and are always running (i.e., keeping time) as long as they are plugged in to the electrical outlet.
Various safety features have been designed into electrical outlets such as, for example, ground-fault circuit interrupters (GFCI) which serve to protect people from electrical shock. However, sometimes a person may plug an electrical load (e.g., a hair curling iron) into an electrical outlet and end up forgetting about it, leaving the electrical load plugged in and drawing current, due to becoming distracted or because they may be suffering from short term memory loss, for example. In such circumstances, depending on the type of electrical load and any safety features it may or may not have, the electrical load could become a fire hazard or some other type of safety hazard.
Further limitations and disadvantages of conventional, traditional, and proposed approaches will become apparent to one of skill in the art, through comparison of such approaches with the subject matter of the present application as set forth in the remainder of the present application with reference to the drawings.